Creative bonds lead Rockford artists to help in math classes

Saturday

Jan 25, 2014 at 8:05 PMJan 25, 2014 at 8:05 PM

By Corina CurryRockford Register Star

ROCKFORD - Pipes from an old church organ form a wall along the edge of a loft in Fraim & Mortar. Behind it is a heap of salvaged glass bottles. There's a rocket ship off to the side, the kind you'd see on a mini-carousel outside a grocery in the 1970s.

That's just one corner of this old warehouse on the northwest side, where four Rockford artists have set up shop.

A massive woodworking table is in the middle of the room. Screen printing machines take up the south end of the building. Everywhere you look is stuff. Wood stuff. Metal stuff. Stuff you'd find at a Hollywood prop house or flea market.

Electronica music fills the air in what has become a hub of creativity and collaboration for Jeremy Klonicki, Carmen Turner, Javier Jimenez and Jennifer Burtman.

The framing and light artists, screen printer and woodworker come and go at all hours. They share the space, the rent, the pizzas and the double IPAs in the fridge. Most important, they share energy and ideas.

"Being around creativity is amazing," said Klonicki, the 34-year-old owner of MainFraim. "I may not be feeling creative one day, but Jen may be making something brilliant up there and that will inspire me to work on something I wasn't planning on. Or if I get stuck on something, I can go to Javier and ask, 'What would you do in this scenario?'"

Something different

Late last year, Klonicki's communal arts space, 3022 Wallin Ave., went beyond collaborative projects and creative support and into the world of public education.

Klonicki, Turner and Burtman are among the 20 artists chosen to help teach math in the Rockford School District.

LuAnn Widergren, Rockford's fine arts director, went to Fraim & Mortar last fall looking for one artist, Klonicki, to participate in art-inspired and art-centered math instruction in middle schools.

She walked out with three.

Artists started working with teachers this month at Kennedy and Flinn middle schools.

The goal is to help the School District change the way it teaches math to students who struggle with basic math concepts.

"There's a saying that you can't get a dent out of a can by kicking it. You have to think of something different, like filling it with water," Widergren said. "Well, these kids, they need something different. We have to try something different. They have had intervention since grade school and it's not working."

Helping students make real-life connections to math could help them realize how math is used in the world, said Amy Blume, a math instructor at Kennedy Middle School.

Building a picture frame takes a geometry textbook's one-dimensional drawings and turns the lessons on angles and ratios into a hands-on activity in which students can touch and see mathematical theories.

"I want them to see that math is all around us," Blume said. "There's so much more to math than what they see."

Pass it on

The idea of arts-infused math instruction makes perfect sense to the artists from Fraim & Mortar.

"People would tell me, 'Oh, this is important. You'll use this.' I remember thinking, 'Whatever.' ... Now I use math all the time. I use math to figure circumference to see how big an opening needs to be so the light bulb fits inside."

Klonicki thinks he'll connect with students. He didn't like school much, dropping out of high school when he was 15.

"I was bored and constantly in trouble," he said.

Klonicki worked at a copier service. He played the drums and dabbled in art. Eventually, he got his GED. He worked for his parents' security business and started making custom frames.

Working with the Rockford School District this spring is a chance to offer assistance of the sort he received from artists when he was starting out.

"Artists in Rockford are great. They encourage me and help guide me. They gave me that 'You can do this.' ... I'm ready to pass it on."